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EP 366 – What The Future Holds

Where do you see yourself in the next three years? Where are you growing? How are you? More so, what’s guiding you down the line? Think about this now. Take a look at where you want to be in the next three years and start to visualize it. What would you do if money was not an issue? Describe it. Many of us don’t do this enough on a regular basis. We all get bogged down with paying bills, running from one event to another, raising kids, work, and other things we’re working on. However, we have to take time to reflect on where we’re at and where we ultimately want to be. Scott breaks down what he thinks that the future holds for note investors over the next three years.

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What The Future Holds

I wanted to talk about the future in this episode. I’m not talking about the next 90 days. I’m not talking about 2019. I’ve talked about it a little bit on my 100th episode of Note Night in America, we called it 2021: A Note Odyssey. I wanted to come back and spend a little bit time on what I’ve talked about here in this episode. One of the things I wanted to talk about with you is where do you see yourselves in the next three years? That was the whole premise of my webinar. Where do you see yourself in the next three years? Where are you growing? How are you? More so, what’s guiding you down the line? Where do you want to see yourself in three years? Think about this. There is no right or wrong answer here. This is completely what you want to accomplish. I have to give a big shout-out to our good friend Michelle Young, who’s been on here before. She’s the wife of Aaron Young. Michelle does a great job talking with people and she’s been a life coach for a couple of years now for a lot of people. One of the things that she does is get somebody to take a look at where they want to be in the next three years and they start to visualize it. What would you do if money was not an issue? What would that look like? Describe it.

Where Do You See Yourself?

She did this at Aaron Young’s Magnify Your Wealth at the Inner Circle Mastermind. I don’t think enough of us do this on a regular basis to guide us. I know that we all get bogged down into paying bills and running from one event to event and you’ve got kids, and you’ve got work. You’ve got other things you’re working on. I totally understand that. I totally respect that, but we have to take time to reflect on where we’re at and where we ultimately want to be. Are we on the right path? Especially if you’re married or you have a spouse, a significant other, you’ve got to share your dream of where you want to go because otherwise you can splinter off and go in different directions. I’ve seen business relationships, I’ve seen business partnerships splinter off and go in different directions because they did not stick to the ultimate goal of where they want to be. I only bring this up because this is a very important aspect of where you want to be. We all want to close more deals. We all want to raise more capital. That’s obvious. We want to make more money. What do you ultimately want to be? Where do you want to be?

I know that some people like Eric Hyde or Chris Seveney or some others out there wanted to speak more and that’s phenomenal. They want to have a meetup group. They’re starting to build their audience. There are local tribes within tribes. What does concern me is I want people to make sure that they don’t fall on their face. I want to make sure that there are steps to doing things, to building an audience, to building levels of where you want to be. It’s not an overnight process. It takes a little while. It takes a little while to build up a local audience before you start teaching. It takes a little while to build up a tribe around you that can capitalize on what you’re trying to do and make it a win-win. We totally encourage anybody out there who are wanting to start a local meetup group or start to network with people. It’s a phenomenal thing. Just make sure you do some great things out and capitalize it. If you want to spend some time on the phone, I’m glad to help out and talk. Eric has taken the opportunity, Chris Seveney and few others have taken the opportunity to reach out to me and I’m glad to help guide them in any way we can. What I’m trying to get at is starting in something is great, but what do you want it to lead to? Where do you want that to go? The only reason I bring this up is this is something that I have been working on and it’s been literally on my mind on a regular basis.

Take Action On What You’re Doing

I’ve talked about this with Steph. We’ve talked about where do we want to see ourselves in the next three years. The last ten years has been crazy. The last five years had been even more amazing. I was looking at numbers. I was looking at those who have signed up for Note Night in America, who have signed up, who was around this time, who’s still around. I will tell you this, over half of those that are reading this who are in the note industry now will probably won’t be in the note industry in three years. I know that’s shocking, but it’s probably half of you. I’m not talking about anybody who’s loyal or is buying deals, stuff like that. Those that are on the cusp and who aren’t doing things, in three years, you’re not going to be here and that’s scary. The reason is you’re not taking action on what you’re doing. You’re not going forward or you think you’re having a mind block or, “This is harder, this is difficult, I can’t do this.” Eventually, you’re going to give up on yourself and move on to something else that you’re going to fail on.

I don’t mean that in a derogatory fashion, it is what I see and it’s unfortunate. The only way to get outside of that to make sure that you’re continuing to grow is to take action, is to make offers, is to be marketing, is to be raising capital and to be networking on a regular basis. Let’s face it, some of the people that have been great in what we’ve done in the last five years are no longer in the note industry. They’ve disappeared like dust. Half of the educators out there aren’t going to be there. I would think it’s less. I wish it was less than that exactly, but it’s probably more than 50%, who knows? People leave for a variety of reasons. Either they get too busy in their job and they can’t do it, they don’t have free time anymore. They’ve got life occurrences. Kids are growing up, they’re still working full-time jobs. They may not have the bandwidth to jump into it. I respect that. I will tell you this right now, only about 10% of people do anything anyway. When I teach a workshop or we have Note CAMP and I provide the list, only about 10% of people ever send an email out to the entire database that we provide at Note CAMP.

What happens is when I teach in a workshop or a conference, I see less than 10% of people that were there. That’s scary because we’ll have 700 to 1,000 people. When I see less than 100 people taking action after the event, it’s frustrating. I want people to take action. I want people to do big things. I know there are people who have been around for a while. There are people who have done a great job with their groups and continued to do things. Most people think it’s one, get rich quick. Two, too difficult. Three, don’t fall through and push them. It’s mostly number three is what it comes down to. Unfortunately, a lot of times people are looking for the get rich quick scheme and they keep bouncing around from one thing to another and they focus on one thing. They’d have a lot more success than bouncing around. It’s not as difficult as we make it out to be. That’s part of the reason we bring on so many great student investors here on the show to talk about it.

What The Future Holds: If you’re not taking action on what you’re doing, you’re not going forward.

Eric Hyde is a great example. He’s still working a full-time job and he closed 30-plus deals. Laura Blunt goes on over 50, Chris Seveney is over 50 as well, and many of them are still working full-time jobs. They’re using the rank systems and they’re coachable with what we share and are implementing with things, which is great. The thing is you look at where are you wanting to be in three years. Where do you want to be in the next three to five years? I mentioned on the call that there can be some major changes taking place in the note industry. Half the educators won’t be here. People that aren’t closing anything and aren’t doing anything on a regular basis are going to be out of the business. They’re not making enough money trying to teach on a part-time basis to handle everything. They have a lot of things.

They’re going to be going to their EA, doing the rentals and landlords and that’s totally fine. There’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever. I see a lot of second-lien investors who have bought seconds that are trying to start selling now because they’re afraid of the downturn that’s going to be taking place. They don’t want their fully encumbered second to be unencumbered when the property values drop. That’s another big thing I see. Thirdly, you’re going to see those investors that take the time to market to put funds together to buy in bulk will be having a lot more success than those that are trying to be the one-off buyers. The one-off buyers, the one or two got note deals, they’ll still always be around. They’re going to be priced out of the market because those that are buying in bulk will be able to take advantage of the opportunities that are hitting, especially when the larger funds start to move their assets or their portfolios.

I’m a big believer that we’re going to see Goldman Sachs be out of the business of the note space in three years. People are asking, “How did you determine that?” If you look at what they paid for all of these non-performing loans that they’ve bought, they’ve overpaid. They overpriced the market on those pools. They way overbid everybody else. What happens when the market turns south? I know they get a dollar for a dollar discount off of every dollar that they forgive towards the big fine. What’s going to happen when the values turn south below what they paid for? Now they’re in a negative asset. Now they’re in an asset that’s losing money. I don’t believe that they’ll stick around for a long time. They’ll start dumping those and carving those portfolios out after twelve months.

Once they’ve gone through that twelve-month period of holding it on these assets, now they can move them. They know what they’re going to modify. They know what they’re going to have to foreclose on and be looking to move those to dump them off their books. That’s going to be a big sell-off on things. That’s going to affect a lot of things. I’m a big believer that interest rates are going to increase. We’re seeing increased default rates across the board on not only the housing in other areas but the days on market. Florida is going to be a big catalyst, California is a big catalyst. Values will start to drop here sooner than later. Interest rates are going to increase across the board. That means pricing is going to go up or credit lines will tighten up.

In 2021, one of the biggest catalysts that are going to happen is we’re going to see more and more drones delivering things that drivers used to do. Uber is eventually going to go to an automated driverless car. We’ll probably see driverless trucks with the freight companies out there. When you don’t have to pay a driver and you can drive nonstop without having to rest and you can do it without accident, that’s going to lay a lot of drivers off. It’s going to lay a lot of taxicab drivers off, it’s going to lay a lot of Uber drivers off that are trying to make ends meet, trying to pay their mortgage by being an Uber or a Lyft driver. That’s going to affect a lot of people. There will be more default rates. You’re going to have a lot more people in the lower class that can’t afford to make mortgage payments that are going to fall eventually. Let’s face it, when you go to the middle class, it’s going to be shrinking dramatically between there. That leaves a lot of default rates.

Protect Yourselves

Marijuana will be legalized in the next three years across the country. A lot of people are going to dive into that aspect of it and some sort of things. You’re going to see a whole other type of commercial asset with distilleries and grow houses and loans that pop up for those kinds of things. That’s going to be a nice little boom, the green boom. What does all that mean for you all? Are you protecting yourselves? Are you buying assets that make sense? If you do lose 20%, 30% on the value there, you’re still sitting in the black. I know people will reach out to me. One reached out to me and asked, “This guy was wanting 75% or 68% of UPB.” I’m like, “It doesn’t make sense. Don’t buy it, walk away.” When people are bidding off values and they are above the UPB on assets, on contract for deeds and note loans, walk away. Those people are smoking some serious crack already. There’s no reason for you to do it. Look at where you want to be in three years. Think about this because 36 months can fly by if you don’t pay attention. If you don’t pay attention to a plan, it will literally eat you up.

What The Future Holds: If you don’t pay attention to a plan, it will literally eat you up.

Your calendar, your events, your life will eat you up. You’d be sitting looking back at 2018 in 2021, “I’m no further along than I was back then.” What do you need to accomplish? What do you want to accomplish? Is it leaving a job? Is it to make money in the note business? For some of you that haven’t closed on deals, you need to start making offers. I know based on seeing some other groups, people are like, “I’m scared to make offers because of raising the capital,” or “I’m scared to make offers because I don’t know where to make offers.” It concerns me when I see stuff like that because people know where to make offers. You’ve heard me talk about this for years of going on either laying guide or Distressed Pro or the Texas Mortgage Bankers website or LinkedIn and reaching out to asset managers. These are little things that you can do on a weekly or daily basis even if you have a full-time job. You can do it from 7:00 PM to 2:00 AM and find deals.

You just have to market. If you’re worried about raising capital, then pull up some IRA investors in your area. Start networking, start reaching out, start building your tribe. If you’re not going to do either of those two things and you’re suffering from paralysis analysis, I’m sorry, you have to expect not to have any success. If you’re going to be stuck because you’re scared of your own shadow, you’re never going to outrun your own shadow, that’s attached to you to the hip. Here’s where I believe that we will be in the next three years. There are going to be a lot of assets in the market. You’ve got to be prepared. Those investors that have funds, either they have marketed for raising capital or have funds put together that is feasible will clean up.

Be Prepared For Opportunities

It means there are a lot of opportunities for things out there. The money will be a little bit more expensive but it’s still relatively cheap. There are plenty of it in the market looking to be put to work. Those that are competitive and who are marketing or they’re reaching out on a regular basis that has a viable business, I don’t care if you’ve bought two assets or 200 assets. If you focus on where the market’s going and you have built a strong business and stick to it, you’re going to find plenty of opportunities. I already see people that have bought hundreds and hundreds of assets that aren’t doing much these days. They’re just chilling back and enjoying the cashflow and that’s totally fine. You have to be prepared when things go south. You may have to adjust your payment models and your modifications to allow your borrowers to be able to continue to pay. I see people like, “I’m going to go up to higher value asset.” That’s totally fine.

What Do You Want To Accomplish?

You have to expect it at some point, it’s not going to be as extreme as it was a decade ago, but you’re going to see $125,000, $130,000 assets are really worth in the mid ‘90s $100,000 for a piece drop in value. Buy the right price and stick to your guns. Don’t overpay for assets right now in the next 90 days. Stick to your guns. The market will correct itself. You have some idiots that overpay for stuff because they don’t know any better. That’s fine. Let them. They’ll be buying those assets back cheaper from them in the long run. What I’m trying to get out here too is what do you want to accomplish. Is it more note deals? Is it leaving your job? Is it doing something big? Is it traveling the world six months out of the year? What is that look like to you?

For me, I visualize being in the Caribbean avoiding hurricane season. Steph and I are there. Steph got this amazing podcast called the Furbabies Podcast. It’ booming. I love seeing her blossom and speaking on things. I’m still in the note industry. I’m still doing it by doing more of this podcast or webinar from the Bahamas, where you guys can see the water behind us. I see I’m in the best shape of my life. I see we have two $25 million funds that are fully funded, one for non-performing and one for performing. I see us having helped create over 100 plus students who became millionaires in the note space, if not more. I know we’ve done a good job creating quite a few so far, but I really have that aspect. We set a goal at the beginning of this year for the next five years to help educate and create 10,000 note investors. We’ll still be on track for that. We will accomplish that but how many of those stick around? Who knows? I wish it was at least 50% or more.

Start Doing Things

It’s going to be hard if they are going to be out of the business but that’s normal. If you’re scared of your own shadow to make offers, if you’re scared of your own shadow to talk to private investors, there’s nobody to blame except yourself. You can’t blame me. You can’t blame your mom, your husband, your wife, your girlfriend or your dog. You can’t blame your mom or dad. You have to realize you have to start doing things. If you’re struggling, just do it. If you’re scared to do it, go out and do it. There’s nothing that you can do that’s going to kill you. Sending out letters to your IRA investors in the area isn’t going to kill you. You’re not going to violate anything. Talk about some case studies. Talk about some deals that other people don’t hear. Talk about the strength of your tribe. I had an international investor called me wanting to partner up with us on our education side. I’m like, “You don’t need me to partner up with you. If you’re going to be directing to investors in your local area in your country, you’re going to have to go back and repeat everything I say and then change it, because the lending laws are different there. Why bother having me? Go out and start sharing yourself.”

What The Future Holds: You have everything you need around you ready to find success.

If you’ve got fifteen, twenty people around your area, start teaching them. That will help you be a better investor. That will help you be a better educator. That will help you raise more capital of providing the message that you want to do. Talk about your strengths, talk about your team. Don’t worry about the fact that you’ve closed on a dozen or 20 or 50 notes. Talk about the strength of your team and how much they have done, why it’s important that they’re a part of your team, that you’re not the person going and doing all the work. You’ve got a team that helps you do these things and the strength of your team is the most important thing.

Henry Ford didn’t build Model Ts. Somebody else built the Model Ts. He put the team together. He brought the people together. He brought the core materials together. He hired people to help go do that themselves, to bring them together. He just sat there and helped control. He was the general manager. He was the owner of the company. He put people in places and let them go do the job. That’s what you have to think of in the note business. You don’t need me to be your educational partner. Go out and do it. Go out and make things happen. That’s the best thing I can say. That’s what I was telling the guy, “You don’t need me. Realize that if you start taking action now and start teaching people in your area about what you’re doing, you’ll have better success. You don’t need me. I appreciate it, but you don’t.” You have everything you need around you already to find success. You have everything you need. You have a computer. You have a cell phone. We have it so much easier in this country than anywhere else and I’m always amazed at the lack of action that people take because of being fearful or being scared. Fear is false evidence appearing real.

Go have a little faith in yourself. Go out and do some actions and take some actions and start working towards your goal. If you need to put a dream board together, put a dream board together. Talk about where you want to be. When are you going to leave your job, when are you going to put close on, when are you going to make a $100,000 buy? Challenge yourself. One of the best things about being an athlete on a team with coaches is that we had people to push us. We always have people around us to lift us up. Even if we were having a bad day, you have players and coaches. Coaches would get on you, not because they didn’t like it. It’s because they wanted you to succeed. They knew the potential that you all have. If you talk about where you want to be in three years, where do you want to live? What’s the house look like? What car are you driving? What are you wearing? What do you look like?

Take The Blinders Off

I see myself in khaki shorts. I’m probably more in board shorts because I’m out swimming all the time in the ocean or I’m going to sail on a paddleboard. That’s why I see myself doing. I miss doing that. I see myself in the best health of my life and having fun. Steph and I are just enjoying life. Every six months out of the year we spend in the United States speaking, traveling, stuff like that. The other six months, we’re pretty much in the Bahamas or some of the tropical island enjoying life, having investors come to us, having special events or mastermind in areas that people can come to hang out and enjoy it and see a bigger picture. I guarantee all of us at many times get so bogged down by our lives that we’re literally getting bang in our head. You can’t see the forest through the tree because that tree keeps ticking trees. Sometimes you have to take a step back and look at the forest to see where you’re at, to see where you’re going.

Unfortunately, we’re closing our eyes, blindfolded ourselves, and we’re running through the forest and banging ourselves to the trees. We’re running through this forest like a blind idiot versus taking some time to stop and take the blinders off. If you look around at that path that you need to take, it will be there. Your path is going to be different than mine. Her path is to be different than yours. Our paths will be a little bit different. There’s a path there if you will just take it. You don’t have to be me. You’ve got to trust me, you don’t want to be me. I don’t want to be you, but you have the power. Each of you has power in yourself to accomplish what you want to accomplish as long as you take action to make those things happen. Maybe it’s starting a podcast, maybe doing a webinar. It’s something that’s unique to you. Be you, don’t go be Scott Carson. Be yourself, be what you are, be who you are but do something.

If you’re consistently running around like a chicken with its head cut off, you probably don’t need to be here at that point. You need to reel things back in and be honest with yourself. A lot of us aren’t honest with ourselves. You have to be honest with yourself about where you’re at, where do you want to go, and why? Those three little letters “why” are probably the most important thing? Why do you want to do that? Why do you want to get where you’re at? I don’t have kids. We don’t have children, we get the four-legged furbabies, which is great. The thing to keep in mind is there are things that we enjoy doing and that’s where I’m the happiest. That’s where Steph is most enjoyable. That’s where you want to get to. Do I love Austin? I love Austin. Austin, Texas is great. Will we always have a place here? Probably so. I love this place, but there are things that are going on in this country that are going to change dramatically and I just want to get away.

What The Future Holds: Your goals are your goals. Set them.

Set Goals

One of the best things that I’ve done over the last six months is I removed everybody from our social media accounts who’s a negative Nancy. I removed myself from groups. I’ve removed myself from looking at negativity out there. I don’t care what other people are doing. I don’t care who they talk bad about. That’s great, fine, go on. I don’t need you in my life. I don’t need that negativity in my life because what happens is we all get sucked into the drama of fake book. We all have to focus on our own selves versus others. The only way you can get to where you want to be in three years is to be focused on what you want to accomplish. Your goals are your goals. Set them, talk about them, share them, write them down, post images. Think about it because what you think about will manifest itself. What you talk about will manifest yourself. You’ll be surprised at what you see when you start to share your goals and opportunities that present themselves. Put it out in the world. You may not know how to get where you’re going, but if you put it out in the world, it will get there.

That surprised me, I have one thing that was funny when I was stopped into Rochester. Steph didn’t go with me, she stayed home. We usually take a couple of pieces of luggage with us, one for myself and one for herself. Steph usually fit very well into sports cars and I’m a big guy too. I don’t usually like to ride that low but when I landed, I’ve been going, “Maybe it would be nice to have a sports car.” I usually have a truck or a big full-sized car. The lady said, “I’ve got a Ford Mustang,” so I said, “Great, awesome.” I got in it and I enjoyed the drive there and enjoyed the drive back. It was funny but it manifests itself. I was like, “I’d really like to drive a sports car. I haven’t done that in forever.” It manifested itself. If you talk about it, it will manifest itself. I didn’t have to bring it up. The lady in the front desk said, “We have a Ford Mustang convertible. Would you like to work with it?” “Yes, sure, let’s do that. That works perfectly.” I started chuckling as I get in the car because it manifests itself. Things manifest if you will be open to it. Be open to what’s going on out there. Be open to sharing your dreams and goals with the people that are around you. You’ll often find people that can help you accomplish those things a lot faster than you would by yourself.

With this episode, if you can do anything, look at what you want to accomplish in three years. Write it down, share it with your spouse, share it with the audience things that you want to accomplish not just in the next 90 days, but the next three years. I know it may seem forever but it will be here faster than you know. We’ve got some great things that we’re working on and you’re going to help us get to our goals fast and we want to help you accomplish the same things as well. Go out make something happen. As always, thank you so much for sharing and commenting. Thank you for those that are leaving reviews. I really appreciate that. Go out and make something happen and take some action. We look forward to seeing you all at the top soon.